“I come up here to think about life a lot,” I told him as we both looked out at the Connecticut River from our high perch. It was 1965, I was 15 years-old, and my grandmother and her third and best husband, Lieberson, were visiting me at my boarding prep school, Northfield School for Girls, in Massachusetts. “Ah, my Lieber,” she said to me when they were first married just a few years earlier--both of them in their 60s-- “he’s such a good man and so intelligent. Anything he doesn’t know he goes and looks it up. He reads everything. He’s interested in everyone. I’m so lucky to have such a husband so late in life.” And then, with a gleam in her eyes and a smile that dimpled her cheeks she added, “and he’s very lucky to have me!” And we’d both laugh at the truth of all her words. They were visiting The United States from their home in Montevideo, Uruguay and seeing me was their last stop before heading back home and then moving to Israel to retire. “This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen,” he told me as soon as they drove onto the campus, “will you walk around and show me your favorite spots?” While my grandmother took a nap in my room, Lieberson and I traipsed up and down the almost 300 acres of slowly goldening late September. “What are they singing there?” he asked as we passed the chapel where the choir was rehearsing. “That’s our school’s hymn, ‘Jerusalem’,” I explained just as the lines, “And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England’s mountains green” wafted through the open windows toward us. Lieberson sighed, “It’s so beautiful.” “Yes,” I agreed, “A beautiful hymn.” “No not just the music,“ he continued, “everything here. All of you girls gathered here learning art and history and math and science and…(He swept his arms out) life. Show me more please.” And so we walked on and found ourselves at “Roundtop” looking at the valley below and the mountains in the distance. “A lot of us come up here to look out and sit and talk. It’s just breathtakingly lovely some days,” I explained as we sat on the ground to take a rest. “If you look out that way you can see where three states all come together—Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire.” “And you, what do you think about when you come here?” he asked with kind bespectacled eyes studying my face. With a rush of tumbling words I told him how we had been studying modern European history and both World Wars. And how the atrocities and hatreds seemed to never abate. How the angers were so pointless and cruel and how people could be so unwaveringly prejudiced and petty. “And I’ve been thinking, lately, with all the horrors that have happened to so many, why was I able to be born? I mean, even in our family so many died in the wars and why then was I meant to be here? It seems like I don’t deserve it.” I had not expected to say all of this, but he seemed to take it all in, listening and nodding as I spoke. Then, quietly, he asked a confusing question: “Tell me—is someone buried here? I see gravestones. Who are they for?” “The founder of this school,” I began, still confused, “Dwight L. Moody and his wife.” “Ah, I thought so,” he continued, “I read a little about this place before we came. He was a Protestant minister, no? And he began this school in 1879 for girls—both rich and poor?” I could see that Lieberson had indeed found correct information. He continued, “It seems to me he was a remarkable man. Girls in those days didn’t have much chance to such education and if they were poor then there was no chance. What a visionary he was! And look, from that beginning the school grew and grew and became this. Why do you think he did this?” I had never thought about that. “I don’t know,” I began, “but I do know that his father died when he was young and his family was quite poor for a long time. He had a lot of brothers and sisters and there wasn’t enough food for everyone. There were a lot of sacrifices.” “Ah,” Lieberson exclaimed, “so maybe because of what his life was like and what he saw, he began to understand who he was and what he could contribute. And maybe part of that was starting a small school for those with limited chances—nothing grand—nothing glamorous. Just a small school where girls from many different backgrounds could explore their own minds and hearts and souls. And it grew and now, look, here you are learning so much!” I was beginning to see his point. He continued: “Maybe part of our purpose here on earth is to remember the past. No one knows why some live and some die. God knows, but in our Jewish religion, He doesn’t really make it clear to us.” Now he chuckled, shrugged his shoulders and continued, “Religions have tried to make sense of this forever. Your hymn, Jerusalem, makes me think of that actual place. Three religions find their holy centers there, Christianity, Islam, Judaism—like your three states that you see from this hill. We keep struggling and searching to find that meaning from many different angles.” “So,” he continued as we stood up to head back, “your Mr. Moody took what was in his history—all the pain and joy and fear and wonder and he found ways to refashion and rebuild it in his present. And then it became the past and it also became the future—the one you are in right now standing here on his grave.” I could see what he was trying to say to me, although it would take me years to fully understand. We kept a companionable silence on our short walk to my dorm—each of us engrossed in our own thoughts. The air filled with the rustling sounds of early falling leaves gently landing on the browning grass. Suddenly I stopped and turned to him, “Lieberson, I just realized something—In the ‘Jerusalem’ hymn the writer of the lyrics—poet William Blake—tells us that if we want to have changes, we need to do what work we can to make it happen. And we need to remember the past to change the future. And we can start anywhere to help the world—and do it any time.” He smiled and hugged me and said—“From wherever I am in this great universe, I will be cheering you on.” Suddenly we both saw my now-rested and buoyant grandmother come happily toward us in the late golden light. As the chapel bells tolled the hour, and the three of us entwined our arms and walked down the path toward the waiting car, I could feel the roots of my life slowly growing downward toward the nourishing past as my limbs grew strong and reached upward toward the beckoning and mysterious future. Comments are closed.
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